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Post by deadwoodgultch on Jan 14, 2017 12:55:44 GMT
Chuck,
There is a great deal of fluff and side stories in every area of life. Spoiled entertainers, football players, mouthy military folks, in most cases I try to drown out the side stories and attempt to focus on their performance. As in cut to the chase. Maybe some with Reno saw Custer on the bluffs, maybe the NA's did as well. What was the impact, why was Custer there, what was GAC thinking, did it impact the overall outcome? Many more questions than answers. Did these side stories have any impact on what we are pursuing?
Regards, Tom
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mac
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,790
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Post by mac on Jan 14, 2017 13:32:02 GMT
This is a place in the action where evidence is hard to come by. I can add little to the terrain discussion at this point other than to confirm what AZ said, that is, that you need to go to the edge of the bluffs to see anything much in the valley. This would be consistent with Custer being seen "on the bluffs" but there are other alternatives.
I understand QC's point about not stopping but maybe this stop is a factor in the warriors awareness of his position as Deadwood points out. Perhaps the inadvisable stop is therefore a factor in the failure.
There had been some army scouts through this area before 1876 so maybe there was some knowledge of the general terrain.
We do know that Custer had no idea of the position or deployment of the village.
I think he intitially expected there to be a group of discrete village circles that he could perhaps attack serially. I also think he thought the first of these was closer to Ford A than the village actually was.
I hate to raise this but... one piece of evidence is the dreaded note. It tells us he has seen the village and has cause to comment that it is big. Hence my previous thoughts. Cheers
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Post by yanmacca on Jan 14, 2017 14:05:13 GMT
I think that the point I was making is not what Custer said, it is why he said it. And the point being that he and his men had already saw the village.
It was Martini that said, that;
“There was a big bend on the hill, turned these hills and went on top of the ridge. All at once we looked on the bottom and saw the Indian village”
So what can we do with this statement by Martini, do we junk it or believe it. If we do junk it, then that throws a cloud over everything else the man says, and we cannot take the rest of his statements seriously.
If we do take it seriously, then we can assume that the whole five companies saw the village together and that this was before the note being sent.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Jan 14, 2017 15:53:11 GMT
QC You are such a cynic! No Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Great Pumpkin or Army beating Navy in football this year. Sad very sad to live in such confines of dealing solely with reality. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Jan 14, 2017 16:00:38 GMT
And my point was not what Custer said either. My point was did he say it, and if he said it, what conclusions can be drawn from his saying it.
I don't know if he said it, and the only one who does know for sure is long dead.
If he said it though the logical conclusion is that Custer saw the village, and in all probability some or all of his people did as well.
It is evident though that someone saw that village, for someone seeing it is the genesis of the note. That someone does not have to be Custer, or the bulk of his battalion. That someone(s) could be a scout on a fast horse, that saw the village, and caught up to Custer and reported it. The further north you think Martini was when he was dispatched with the note, the more likely it is that Custer, himself did not see the village, but rather its presence and extent was reported to him. If you conclude that the note was sent in close proximity to the viewing place, the more likely it is that Custer himself viewed the valley.
"There was a big bend on the hill (In this instance change the word hill to bluffs), turned(insert the words - on the -)hill (drop the plural) and went on top of the ridge"
That description can match only one place on the map that I can see, and I can also buy as being a completely accurate portrayal of the truth. That place is where the road bends around Sharpshooter Ridge, just north of the Reno/Benteen site. Sharpshooter runs generally southwest to northeast, and Martini's description matches where the westernmost edge of Sharpshooter nearly touches the end of the bluffs. Standing on Sharpshooter near that point appears to give you line of sight into that valley all the way past Weir Point and Garryowen Post Office, and a rather good view of the pony herd. What you cannot see though is the Reno engagement area, because it was too close to the river, and the angle of sight precludes it. Going further east on Sharpshooter though and you could not see squat in the valley. I am sure enough about this that I think I could call accurate indirect fire from this position. Look at your maps and tell me what you think.
My overarching point though is that for over a century we have been saddled with this notion that Custer went to the edge of the bluffs to view Reno's progress, and by the way, when he was there saw that it was a big village. We have no idea that was the case. No idea at all. Yet we accept that as fact. Long after the battle, when Teddy was president, that artist whose name I can never remember related that story, supposedly told him by the Crows. Teddy didn't believe it, neither do I. Martini never took anyone to the spot, and the description above I believe is the clearest word picture he ever gave of the incident. So if you want to base all your conclusions on some figures seen on top of a bluff by men in the heat of battle, and the reportage of an artist being led about by Crows who probably also had some sort of agenda, be my guest.
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Post by yanmacca on Jan 14, 2017 16:23:45 GMT
Now do you think that he could see enough from this location without detaching himself from the column and going to the edge of the bluffs?
I mean what would be the reason once he saw the village location from this position, would he need to see where Reno was, or would this be just an added bonus.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 14, 2017 17:30:31 GMT
If I think I could call effective indirect fire on that place, I would also think that he could see enough for him to conclude that it was an extensive series of villages that were much closer together than he might have imagined.
So the answer is yes, I believe he could see enough for any purpose he had.
I do not believe he needed to see Reno's action.
If you take the hold your horses statement at face value, had he detached himself to go to the edge of the bluffs he would have presumably left his soldiers out of sight from the action taking place, so why would they (the soldiers and horses) be excited? They would have seen nothing. Only if both Custer and his soldiers had both seen the extent of that village would there have been excitement in the ranks. The place that fulfills that requirement is the place I described. I can see a momentary halt, look at the village, then send the message and carry on.
The story related by the Crow's to that artist places Custer with them. I think it was possible that the Crow's did see Reno in the valley, just as they related. Placing Custer with them adds some mystery and flavor to the story, but who knows if they said Custer was with them. Maybe the artist presumed that to be the case.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 14, 2017 20:17:10 GMT
Dave is quite correct. I am a cynic. I am though a cynic with purpose, that purpose being I want to get this thing right, and I am smart enough to know that I am not smart enough to get it right without help.
Going back to that place on the western end of Sharpshooter:
I know how much land area it takes to put a brigade under canvas in ten man squad tents. It is considerable. From that knowledge I can visualize how much area would be required to do the same thing with a body of people that approaches the size of a two division army corps using the same sized tentage, with attendant motor pools. That would be the size of at least ten brigades. Now the tepee is not the same size as the ten man squad tent. The tepee is round and the 10 man tent rectangular, but the both cover about the same amount of square feet, give or take a few. So if you get into your minds eye an area two and a half to three miles long and about a mile wide, I think you are then able to envision the size of that camp, and from there get an impression of what you could see from the western tip of Sharpshooter Ridge.
Now here is where the cynic comes in. If all of us say twenty or so, would go camping along the Little Big Horn in June, the spot we would pick is near water and in shade and park our vehicles nearby. What we would do though is not possible for thirty thousand people, give or take a few grand. Our minds eye though is telling us that what we would do, they would do. That's just not so, because it is not physically possible, at that place.
The larger the occupied space, the more possible it is to see it from the place mentioned.
Now to the matter of Santa Claus. I believe in Santa Claus if you are speaking of the embodiment of that feeling of joy and good will that surrounds Christmastide. I also know that the modern American view of Santa, and the trappings that surround him, reindeer, sleigh, chimney climbing down, and the rest is an invention of Clement Moore, fostered by the cartoons of Thomas Nast, and the Coca Cola Company. Transposing all that to the subject at hand is a matter of stripping Moore, Nast, and Coca Cola away, and getting back to the bare facts of that feeling of joy and good will. That's a pretty hard job when people have been putting coat after coat of fiction on top of the facts for low these many years.
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Post by Beth on Jan 14, 2017 20:57:13 GMT
This is a place in the action where evidence is hard to come by. I can add little to the terrain discussion at this point other than to confirm what AZ said, that is, that you need to go to the edge of the bluffs to see anything much in the valley. This would be consistent with Custer being seen "on the bluffs" but there are other alternatives. I understand QC's point about not stopping but maybe this stop is a factor in the warriors awareness of his position as Deadwood points out. Perhaps the inadvisable stop is therefore a factor in the failure. There had been some army scouts through this area before 1876 so maybe there was some knowledge of the general terrain. We do know that Custer had no idea of the position or deployment of the village. I think he intitially expected there to be a group of discrete village circles that he could perhaps attack serially. I also think he thought the first of these was closer to Ford A than the village actually was. I hate to raise this but... one piece of evidence is the dreaded note. It tells us he has seen the village and has cause to comment that it is big. Hence my previous thoughts. Cheers I agree with you that Custer had no idea of the position or deployment of the village. I suspect no one at the time would have expected so many different tribes would be paced cheek to jowl into that valley. It seems reasonable to expect them to be spaced more discrete. They had the space to be spread out and but chose not to be. I wonder why? Was it so they could have what is sort of a herd protection factor or perhaps by the time the village had reached its peak size, it took on an almost Woodstockesque mentality of "We are one." People change their expected behavior when gathered in crowds, especially when gathered for a common event. The note implies that a large village has been seen but not that it was seen by Custer's own eyes. Frankly I don't even think it implies that ALL of the village was seen at the time the message was written-if it had perhaps Custer would have said HUGE village instead of big and put more emphasis in getting Benteen where he is needed. That message is SO problematic and perhaps a bit held overly important. It is the last physical remnant of Custer giving a command yet it tells us really nothing.
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Post by Beth on Jan 14, 2017 21:06:29 GMT
I think that the point I was making is not what Custer said, it is why he said it. And the point being that he and his men had already saw the village. It was Martini that said, that; “There was a big bend on the hill, turned these hills and went on top of the ridge. All at once we looked on the bottom and saw the Indian village”So what can we do with this statement by Martini, do we junk it or believe it. If we do junk it, then that throws a cloud over everything else the man says, and we cannot take the rest of his statements seriously. If we do take it seriously, then we can assume that the whole five companies saw the village together and that this was before the note being sent. Since Martini had a variety of stories--when was that statement made?
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Post by Beth on Jan 14, 2017 21:30:22 GMT
I found this article when looking for pictures from SSR. It's an interesting read with great pictures. It also includes this information "Trumpeter John Martin said that after climbing to the base of the ridge, they stopped and looked out over the valley and that location was about 300 yards from the Reno-Benteen defense site. The Crow scouts would later say that the location was near the Lt. Benny Hodgson marker. The Hodgson marker has since been relocated below the bluffs and near the river, but at the time the Crow shared their accounts it was just below us near the pullout where our tour bus was parked. From where we stood, on the south end of the ridge, Custer could see about two thirds of the village. The Cheyenne camp, at the downstream end, would have been obscured by Weir Point."
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Post by Beth on Jan 14, 2017 22:55:38 GMT
Dave is quite correct. I am a cynic. I am though a cynic with purpose, that purpose being I want to get this thing right, and I am smart enough to know that I am not smart enough to get it right without help. Going back to that place on the western end of Sharpshooter: I know how much land area it takes to put a brigade under canvas in ten man squad tents. It is considerable. From that knowledge I can visualize how much area would be required to do the same thing with a body of people that approaches the size of a two division army corps using the same sized tentage, with attendant motor pools. That would be the size of at least ten brigades. Now the tepee is not the same size as the ten man squad tent. The tepee is round and the 10 man tent rectangular, but the both cover about the same amount of square feet, give or take a few. So if you get into your minds eye an area two and a half to three miles long and about a mile wide, I think you are then able to envision the size of that camp, and from there get an impression of what you could see from the western tip of Sharpshooter Ridge. Dang QC you may be a cynic but your reference to an army encampment has helped me to visualize the village better than I ever have before mainly as a baby boomer I've seen tons of pictures of army encampments. BTW you may have a touch (a healthy dose) of cynicism but I would more classify you as a skeptic. The world needs people who don't accept things at face value.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 15, 2017 0:38:53 GMT
Beth: Before I wrote that I went to an old map I have in my desk drawer of Fort A. P. Hill. A. P. Hill is largely made up of training areas with tent camp sites scattered around the west side of U S Route 301. Each of those camp sites was set up for a regiment of three battalions and about a battalion's worth of headquarters and service units organic to the regiment of the World War II period. In the modern era they would hold about three battalions and a brigade headquarters (about 2800 to 3200 personnel). We could never get a full brigade into one of them, as the brigade was about 4200 people.
Those sites are all configured differently but the average size is about 1200 meters long and about 600 meters wide, and I am getting this off of a very good 1:50,000 scale map. Some are smaller, some a bit larger.
All you would have to do is put about five of those together, and you have a pretty big piece of territory. I would say that the total encampment is about the size of Tom's home town Bowling Green Virginia, configured differently but covering relatively the same land area. My map in 1977 vintage so Bowling Green may have grown since then
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Post by yanmacca on Jan 15, 2017 14:05:23 GMT
The scouts that went along with Custer were Bouyer, Curley, Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin and Whiteman Runs Him. Now Bouyer bought it and Curly is not creditable, but the three other Crows apparently kept to their story and never changed, so as these men were in the area which over looked the valley, we can find some interesting data.
Whiteman Runs Him interview;
Custer called White Swan and told him and Half Yellow Face to go over to the ridge and see what was going on in the Sioux camp. They started, but instead of going over to the ridge as they were told, they followed Reno, and that was the last we saw of them until the trouble was over. Then Custer started moving toward the ridge. Mitch Boyer noticed the scouts whom Custer had sent to look over the ridge, had followed Reno, so he called Curley, Goes Ahead, Hairy Moccasin and me and said, Let us go over to the ridge and look at the lodges.
When we reached there, we saw that the lodges were over in the valley quite a ways down the river, so we moved on ahead, Custer following. This was about nine o'clock in the morning. Custer moved slowly, taking lots of time and stopping occasionally. He did not leave that place until Reno had started fighting. Before Reno left Custer on the flat, another body of soldiers had been ordered away towards the left, but we were far in advance at that time, so I do not know where they went (This was Captain Benteen). Custer and his brother went to the right of us and halted on a small hill.
His troops were moving forward below him. Custer turned around as he reached the top of the hill and waved his hat, and the soldiers at the bottom of the hill waved their hats and shouted. Custer then proceeded on up the ridge and his men followed. (Fred Goldin also described Custer grandly waving is hat to his men below. Medal of Honour winner Stan Roy was one of the men with Reno who saw Custer on the bluff). They were moving rapidly, and the scouts were forced to gallop their ponies sometimes to keep up with them. At a certain point on the ridge they turned to the right and rode down a coulee in a northern direction.
The scouts took up a position on the high bluffs where we could look down into the Sioux camp. As we followed along on the high ground, Custer had come down Medicine Tail Creek and was moving toward the river. The Indians saw him there, and all began running that way. There were thousands of them. Custer tried to cross the river at the mouth of Medicine Tail Creek, but was unable to do so.
This was the last we saw Custer. Mitch Boyer said to us: "You scouts need go no farther. You have guided Custer here, and your work is finished, so you had better go back to the pack-train and let the soldiers do the fighting." He said that he was going down to join Custer, and turning his horse galloped away. That is the last time we saw Mitch Boyer.
More on how Custer viewed the Reno situation;
Goes Ahead, Whiteman Runs Him, Hairy Moccasin and Curley stayed with Custer. The four scouts and interpreter Mitch Bouyer rode ahead of the soldiers, Hairy Moccasin said in a 1916 interview. Custer yelled at them to stop and ride to a high hill to see what progress Reno was making on his assault on Sitting Bull’s camp circle.
Hairy Moccasin told Custer “Reno’s men are fighting hard,” though he believed at the time they would all be killed. He recalled that Custer told Bouyer to send the scouts back to the back train several miles behind. Hairy Moccasin, Goes Ahead and Whiteman Runs Him obeyed. The pack train later joined Benteen’s command and what remained of Reno’s after its wild retreat across the river and onto the high bluffs.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 15, 2017 14:56:13 GMT
Interviewed and written down by whom? Sounds like Camp.
Read the last two paragraphs of the first statement, then tell me if you think that with thousands of Indians swarming him at Medicine Tail Coulee Ford that he would have gone off to Ford D leaving three companies behind in the Calhoun area, or better yet ever made it as far away from MTC Ford as LSH.
This interview was in 1916, long before anyone knew about the excursion to Ford D. All they knew at the time is that Custer had gone to the river, was repulsed, and subsequently got overrun.
There may be a few pearls in there, but the basic story itself is rubbish, and it is obvious that the mention of an Indian scouts name here and there just added coloring and flavor to the story the white writer wanted to tell, and the story he told was his version of events.
All too many whiteisms and military terms in both those narratives for them to be literal translations of what the Indians might have had to say.
Always keep in mind that if it was Camp that wrote all this down, he had a tendency to tell people what he wanted them to tell him. Also notice how names like Gouldin and Roy were inserted in the narrative, people whom those Indians would not know fro Adam, but whom Camp would have known of quite well. Look also at the timing of some of these events internal to the narrative.
Camp and others were convinced that this battle space was far more confined than it actually was. Take notice that it was these same Indians that were supposedly firing into the village from the bluffs near Weir Point that were telling these things, and if what was related was true, they would have had a ring side seat to the events at Ford B and the overrunning of Custer in general. Notice also there is no mention of Wolf Tooth engaging anyone, and according to the narrative presented it would have been impossible because Custer in the narrative was in Medicine Tail Coulee, someplace where Wolf Tooth was not. In short, while Camp or whomever it was talked to Indian scouts, he never evidently talked to the Indians that mattered, or if he did, he did not believe them.
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